Common sense takes a hike

Re: “Freed hikers return home,” Sept. 26.

The article is strangely silent on who or what had to put up the $1 million-plus bail to secure the release of the two hikers. I can venture a guess – special funds of the U.S. State Department – in other words, the U.S. taxpayer again. But who am I to complain over such a paltry sum to bring these two fine young men back home to their families?

Fine young men? What in heaven’s name were they doing pleasure hiking on a border alongside of which lay a nation within which their own nation was still fighting a war, on the other a nation with which the U.S. severed diplomatic relations over 30 years ago? Applaud their intrepid, enterprising spirit if you like. As for me, I have but one thought: Did either one have the brains he was born with?

One of the repatriated hikers actually had the temerity to suggest that U.S. policies toward Iran were wrong, and that this was responsible for the detention of him and his companion, ignoring completely the brutal seizure of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and captivity of its entire staff for over a year, against every precept of civilization and international law.

Dennis P. Roberts

Spokane